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Space Pics
Telescope Photo-History
 Flaking the SupportThe old support was to be the base of the new telescope, but being full of rust and seeing bits coming off it was a good idea to give it a polish. Small pieces of debris could have made the telescope obsolete and Malcolm very angry... |  Making of the HandleThe part of our project which remains incomplete to this day, the automatic ascent and descent of the panels via motors. This will probably provide us with work for months to come. |  It's a kind of Magic...sometimes I wonder why I did not just use paint? The chair in its previous state is shown (right) and the result after 1 hour of scrubbing is shown beside it (left) |
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 The hingesHaving had no experience in carpentry, the creation of the hinges was a real feat, we built two of them, destroyed one of them, to then rebuild it... but finally, our toothed wheels would turn the dome. |  Fuse Box..enough said... it makes sense to provide the £8000 worth telescope with some security after all... The car battery used to power the telescope would be recharged via small solar panels. |  Now this is grinding..The toothed wheel firmly pressed against the timing belt, still a couple of issues to fix, but glad to be at this stage right now. |
 Central PylonThe central pylon is made of cement and is part of the foundations of the dome; I used it as a stool at this stage to open and close the hatch. |  No more painI made the 'head-damper' from pieces of polystyrene which I found lying in the room adjacent to the dome. Overall a pretty good DIY temporary solution to pain. |  The view from the domeWith such a fantastic view it was a pleasure working. I remember once it started raining and I just stood there topless enjoying the rain, a great experience |
 The windscreen motorThe level of sceptisism I had when Malcolm showed me the two motors was unbelievable. I thought to myself; there is no way that these two devils can get the whole dome rotating... (Thank goodness I was wrong) :) |  Ye ol' toolboxMay the Heavens be praised that the KCL Physics department at least had a tool box. Up until this stage everything was labelled as: DIY (Do it yourself) FIY (Find it yourself) and TIY (Think it Yourself) ... with a hammer I felt like a King |  Rust as far as the eye can seeThis is the Metal ring on the dome, we wanted to glue a timer tape onto it, but this would have been nigh impossible without some solid de-rusting... which took a lot of sweat and swearing and a rusty nail in the wrist before it was of an acceptable standard... (ie 2 days) |
 Inches = BarbaricInches ...I will not even commence arguing... however... did you know that Barbarian actually has nothing to do with the fact that the invaders of the Roman Empire had beards? Contrary to popular belief, Barbarian actually means: 'Man who babbles'. This was because to the Latins any other idiom really did sound Greek... pun not intended.. |  THE HATCH(ET)The number of times I have been : Guillotined Decapitated Scratched Bruised ... etc etc etc by this abomination is ridiculous.. Health and safety? I can cut my salami with how fast this thing slides back down! |  The hatch from the outsideThis is what the hatch looked like from the outside of the dome, the two sliding panels can be seen, the bottom one slides under the top one. |
 The ShardUltimately this was the reason we built the telescope... I mean.. why look at the stars when you have the Shard? (Plus panoramic toilets on the 68th floor??? Are you kidding me?) |  The ArduinoThis was the brain between the computer and the circuit board which would have controlled the movement of the dome. I am proud to say an Italian creation :) | Handle Built!What looks like a misshapen boomerang is actually the handle of the panels... destined to fail.. |
 The handle... failureTo move the panels up and down we thought of making a handle which we would attach to the bottom panel... this never really worked out to a decent- enough standard... the dea was scrapped (And I realised I had no carpentry skills) |  Its not a Da Vinci...Simple drawings picturing the mechanism of the sliding of the panels... over time I guarantee my technical drawing skills improved... |  The Almighty ArduinoWithout this little rascal the whole project would have come to a standstill. The code Sunayana wrote for the Arduino allows the dome to rotate adapting to the position of the telescope, and this really is cool. |
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